By: Seeraj Mohamed
High global inflation is a fact that we will have to live with for the next year or two. There are optimistic views that the cycle will reverse in the first or second quarter next year but I think it will last longer than that. The question for South Africa is how...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The next stage of the global financial crisis may befall us soon. It is being caused by huge defaults in credit card repayments. Similar to the subprime crisis, the roots of the next stage are in abominably poor lending practices driven by the huge growth in...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The prospects for a global recession seem more likely every day. The prices of almost everything are going up. The global credit crunch is really starting to squeeze and its grip will tighten.

By: Seeraj Mohamed
Economists and financiers are fond of using technical-sounding words when a simple phrase could more easily explain their meaning. ‘Deleveraging’ has suddenly become popular in the business media.

By: Seeraj Mohamed
Recent newspaper headlines said that South African house prices are set to drop by 40 percent. The bubble has burst. I have argued that South Africa had a house price bubble. Alan Greenspan, former US Fed chief, famously commented that one can only tell if there is...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The Pew Center put out a report in February 2008 that estimated that about 1% of the US population is incarcerated. Their report said that at the beginning of this year 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison. They argue that this rate of incarceration is the...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
South Africa and the world face massive price increases. The poor are going hungry. Workers are losing their jobs. The costs of necessary infrastructure projects are increasing significantly. Aggregate demand is crashing and economic growth is declining all over the...

By: Creamer Media Reporter
South Africa’s economic growth over the last decade can be characterised as growth driven by the affluent. This period of relatively good economic growth can also be said to have increased inequality and to not have been environment friendly.

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The collapse of Bear Sterns shows that South Africa is acutely affected by daily events in US financial markets. The collapses and the recoveries in US equities markets drive our share prices up and down. The actions of the US Federal Reserve Board influence the rand...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
Many South Africans aspire to own their own homes. A huge percentage of our population lives in informal settlements. Too many South Africans lack the security and safety of a formal home. Government policies and programmes and private-sector developers and...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel announced further liberalisation of South Africa's international financial relations during his Budget speech. He said that there would be a move to scrap exchange controls and to entirely use prudential regulations. Manuel...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
How meaningful is South Africa’s inflation rate target? The consumer price index excluding mortgages (CPIX) used to gauge inflation rates in South Africa has been outside of the three to six percent target band for about nine months now. The Reserve Bank (SARB)...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
There have been a number of fundamental flaws in the economic perspectives of senior South African policymakers that have shaped our economic policies. One of the most important conceptual flaws is the result of government policymakers believing that they should not...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) chose not to increase interest rates again last month. There was a collective sigh of relief across the country when interest rates remained unchanged. Even as the latest inflation figures...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
South African policymakers finally seem to have realised that ‘nontraditional' exports are important. There were many people inside and outside government arguing that the South African economy has to build its industrial base and reduce its reliance on...

By: Seeraj Mohamed
The losses resulting from the contagion of the US subprime crisis continue to be felt around the world. The fallout has reached as far as the Arctic Circle. Four remote Norwegian towns invested and lost millions in collateralised debt products.